Airpower in Counter-Terrorist Operations

Violent non-state actors, including terrorist networks, pose a real if limited threat to the citizens of virtually every state in the international system. The operations of these networks, individually and collectively, are also corrosive to the stability and functioning of the international system as a whole. It is therefore natural that the more capable and responsible states in the system have attempted to employ their instruments of power, including military power, to mitigate both the proximate and broader challenges posed by terrorist networks. Given the growing number and potency of these networks since the 1990s, "counter-terrorist (CT) campaigns" have not surprisingly become a hallmark of contemporary international politics".